Like several other reviewers I was taken to the film 'cold' without
knowing anything about it, and after several minutes was expecting the
somewhat lacklustre tunes and stock-farce characters to tip over into
something edgy and contemporary. Mais non. However is this such a bad
thing? Given the French predilection for unflinching realism and tragic
endings, Pas Sur La Bouche can be enjoyed as a salute to the traditions
of the Comedy Francaise, an expression of nationalist (anti-Brussels?)
sentiment, and as a crafted product as lovingly detailed as a
reproduction Deco sideboard. One is almost expected to read afterwards
that Resnais had an ironic or iconoclastic subtext in mind, but the
film seems to be charmingly irony-free throughout. There are no
patronising modernist jabs at the shallowness of pre-war bourgeois
entertainment, and in fact the period is recreated with a warm and
sentimental glow. It can be argued in fact that the play has been not
so much adapted for the screen as embalmed, for there are definite
longueurs, the singing voices are almost uniformly mediocre, and the
lack of varied or outdoor settings does detract. All in all, a
charming, civilised and unexpected entertainment from one of the
self-styled intellectuals of French cinema, and a brilliant recreation
of an ensemble of now-forgotten French 'types'. To get an idea of
precisely how far comedy has 'advanced' in 70 years, compare with
Legally Blonde or My Best Friend's Wedding and you'll see my point.

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